Today is the 131st birth anniversary of leading English haematologist, Lucy Wills who was the pioneer in tackling prenatal anaemia during pregnancy.&nbsp;<br />”<br />”<br />”Lucy's seminal work in India in the late 1920s and early 1930s helped identify folic acid supplementation to prevent anaemia in pregnant women.&nbsp;<br />”<br />”<br />”Wills spent her life traveling the world and researching on the health of pregnant women until her death in 1964.<br />”<br />”<br />”Born in 1888, she&nbsp; conducted seminal work in India in 1928 on macrocytic anaemia during pregnancy.&nbsp;<br />”<br />”<br />”Lucy Wills observed an apparent correlation between the dietary habits of different classes of Bombay women and the likelihood of their becoming anaemic during pregnancy.&nbsp;<br />”<br />”Poor women were the ones with both the most deficient diets and the greatest susceptibility to anemia.<br />”<br />”This anemia was then known as 'pernicious anemia of pregnancy'.&nbsp;<br />”<br />”However, Lucy Wills was able to demonstrate that the anemia she observed differed from true pernicious anemia.&nbsp;<br />”<br />”The nutritional factor called the 'Wills Factor' was subsequently shown to be folate, the naturally occurring form of folic acid.&nbsp;<br />”<br />”Her observations led to the discovery of a nutritional factor in yeast which both prevents and cures this disorder.&nbsp;<br />”<br />”<span style="color: #222222;">It was later found to help not just pregnant mothers but also the child by helping in their brain development.</span><br />